


AKA University Mayhem

by TheRealSokka



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, University AU, author has read too much PJO lately, kinda Rivals to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 02:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17520614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRealSokka/pseuds/TheRealSokka
Summary: Annabeth has just started her bachelor at university, very much prepared and with a plan, but from the very first lecture everything kind of spirals out of control.And it's all the fault of this one talkative guy with the too-damn-distracting green eyes.





	AKA University Mayhem

It’s 10:20am, Tuesday morning, and Annabeth is late for her lecture.

This sentence, if involving any other person, would be utterly unremarkable. Literally _everyone_ is late for lectures, after all. That’s just a logical consequence of not making attendance mandatory for the things. Annabeth has already learned that much before the semester has even started. She might deplore that kind of attitude, but right now it comes in handy to defend herself. And, really, she’s not even _late_ late, people are still filing into the room and the professor is evidently still on the first page of his opening presentation. So it’s not the end of the world, right?

Wrong. Annabeth Chase hasn’t been late before, never, for anything, and she really hasn’t wanted to start with her first class in her first year at her first university, of all times. This is a disaster.

A couple of heads turn her way to stare at the panicked and slightly dishevelled blonde who has just sprinted into the hall, skidded to a stop behind the back row and is breathing heavily like she has just run a marathon. Once she’s recovered enough, Annabeth throws a glare in the heads’ direction, and they turn back around. There are a few indifferent shrugs. They’re judging her, silently. Or quite possibly that’s just Annabeth’s hyperactive mind doing it for them. Because yeah, she feels ridiculously guilty. She’s five (technically 20) minutes late on her first day!

But it’s really not her fault!

Her lungs are screaming in protest as she slides into the back row, trying to take out her notepad while also getting her breathing under control. She is starting to regret not doing any sports for the past few months. Her embarrassment isn’t helping the situation. _What impression is this gonna make…?_

“You’re hyperventilating.” her seat neighbour states, sounding mildly concerned. “Seriously. Breathe.”

Now, Annabeth’s nerves are slightly frayed at the moment and this advice, though probably well meant, isn’t helping. She is just about ready to unpack her patented death glare as she turns in her seat to clarify that she is perfectly alright, none of your business, thank you very much. Once she does, though, that perfectly formulated rebuttal dries up as she finds herself looking at a pair of green eyes. Like, seriously green. Ocean-green. Put it down to her mental state that that startles her as much as it does, but she all but forgets what she wanted to say. A breathless “I’m, uh, fine.” is what leaves her mouth instead.

The boy they eyes belong to blinks. He’s probably about her age, but at first glance Annabeth can’t think of him as anything other than ‘boy’. He’s just got a boyish look about him; with the big (very green) eyes, the ugly high-school-graduate sweater and a mop of black hair arranged in a haircut that went out of fashion two decades ago. His features are kind of soft, too, except for the chin stubble where he’s evidently trying to grow a beard. It’s not working that well, a mean thought crosses her mind.

He is still looking a little worried for her – which is odd since Annabeth swears she has never met this guy before. His eyebrows rise in question: “You sure you’re fine? You were looking pretty panicked when you waltzed in here.”

“I- yeah.” she says. Absurdly, she feels like she has to justify herself: “My bus got stuck and I had to run. Almost didn’t make it.” That’s the very short (and understated) version of events, at least.

His eyebrows rise even higher, until they almost disappear into his hairline. “That’s it? You’re aware that this is a _lecture_ , right?”

There’s that attitude she was referring to earlier. “I know.” she says, slightly tartly. “I just didn’t want to miss it. Unlike others, I don’t want to just sit here, doodle and get some free points.”

“Whoa, hey, me neither. And, well, you didn’t. Miss it, that is.” The boy shrugs, leaning back in his seat, seemingly without a care in the world. He’s chewing gum, she notices.

The more Annabeth sees of her new neighbour, the less thrilled she is: he’s got this vague air of laziness about him that she absolutely can’t stand, plus that wide grin that she privately classifies as ‘troublemaker’. And while so far he seems nice enough, both of those discoveries make her increasingly regret her spontaneous choice of seat, because the last time she’d spent a year next to a certain person with that grin, it hadn’t ended well. Perhaps she’s misjudging him, that’s of course possible. But it’s a good thing she can switch seats anytime she wants.

The boy has turned to look towards the front of the lecture hall again, with a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and that is when Annabeth realizes that she’s been looking at him for long enough to have missed an entire slide of the professor’s presentation. Upon that realization, she immediately whips around, too, mentally kicking herself. She couldn’t possibly have caught a worse start if she tried. With practised fingers, she opens a text document and starts furiously typing down everything. At least her ADHD comes in slightly useful in situations like this.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she notices that green-eyed boy has also started on his note pad, though he (infuriatingly) manages to look a lot more relaxed than she does.

The lecture is actually really good. Mr Brunner, the professor holding it, doesn’t seem to stop moving around even for a moment while he talks, despite the fact that he’s in a wheelchair. His enthusiasm for his subject is contagious, and for once Annabeth doesn’t feel like she is the only one in the room paying attention. She all but forgets about green-eyed boy after a while.

That state of affairs doesn’t last very long.

“So, you like history?” his voice suddenly says a few minutes later, out of the blue.

“Yeah.” she replies absentmindedly, watching the next set of dates appear on the board and copying them down pre-emptively.

“Awesome, me too. Especially Ancient History.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah, right? Like, I just saw this lecture: ‘Ancient Greece in Myth and History’, and that just sounded too perfect.”

“Hmhm.”

“And the prof seems to be good, too. I was worried we’d get one of the really old ones who just drones on and on. But this Brunner is cool.”

He can’t take a hint, this guy. Annabeth finally abandons her resolutely-staring-ahead tactic and turns to face him. The green eyes meet hers. He’s smiling, slightly lopsidedly. Annabeth doesn’t return it. All she wants right now is some peace and quiet to concentrate on the lecture, not be interrupted the entire time. Especially since she suspects (largely due to extensive previous experience) that him saying these things is just his way of hitting on her. Well, he’s picked the wrong person and the wrong time for that, because Annabeth really doesn’t have the nerve for this right now. “You like Ancient History?” she questions.

He smiles: “Yep.”

“So I guess you’ve read the literature beforehand?”

“A bit of it. Reading is not my strong suit.”

 _What is?_  Annabeth manages not to say that out loud and instead goes for a quick knock-out – of the kind that usually calls out bullshitters pretty quickly: “Question: If you could pick one person from before 300 BC to talk to, who would it be?”

To her surprise, green-eyed guy does actually have an answer to that, after some consideration. Not that Annabeth would have picked _Alexander_ , but still. Even further probing from her part doesn’t seem to intimidate her neighbour enough to drop the subject. He’s heard of Sokrates, Diogenes and Themistokles, and is not only aware that Homer is more than a lazy, yellow cartoon character, but can also correctly attribute the writing of the Iliad to him – a test which most people that Annabeth knows, including the ones she legitimately likes, would fail at the first hurdle. It annoys her more than a little that this random guy doesn’t.

But when the random guy then offhandedly mentions that he doesn’t really like the Odyssey, that is when the gloves are off for good. Annabeth is not going to just sit here and let _that_ slide.

“You obviously haven’t read it.” she states indignantly.

“Yes I have. Once, at least.”

“Then you must have really awful taste to find it boring.”

It devolves into a heated argument rather quickly from there. Annabeth likes books, okay, and she will defend her favourites with tooth and claw if they are threatened by some dolt who doesn’t know what he is talking about. That being said, she is slightly taken off guard by how into it Random Guy gets, too. If his proclaimed interest in the subject is a pretext for hitting on her, he is putting a remarkable amount of effort into it. She notices that his hands never seem to stop moving while he talks. And, as was already established, he talks a lot.

His first and main point is that there aren’t any actual heroes in the Odyssey to root for, not even the title character himself, and that is still easy for Annabeth to take apart and prove false. But once she does so his expression turns serious, almost determined, and he does manage to come up with new arguments to counter hers (“It’s _not_ a perfect metaphor; metaphors are supposed to be up to interpretation. Look at that stupid men-turned-into-pigs episode! Can you get any more obvious?”).

Arguing with Green Eyes, as she is taking to calling him in her head since neither of them have asked for the other’s name, turns out to be a very convoluted experience. Some things he says are reasonable, others almost make her laugh, and some just make no sense – and it’s really tough to get into a rhythm of contradicting him when he’s always switching between the three randomly. Annabeth is forced more than once to backtrack and change her point of view in order to dismantle his reasoning. He gets an odd look in his eyes whenever she does it, one that Annabeth can’t quite place – and why do his eyes have to be so damn distracting? It’s throwing her off her game. That’s the only way this argument could have lasted this long.

Excerpt:

_“You can’t be serious.”_

_“_ You _can’t be serious.”_

_“How is Hercules smarter than Odysseus?! He’s literally just muscles. And Odysseus’ sheep trick is one of the smartest things a character has ever done in the myths, period.”_

_“But that must have been smelly, though.”_

_“What does that have to do with anything?!”_

_“Just saying; have you ever tried hanging on to a sheep’s bottom? Polyphem was so stupid, there must have been a million other ways to trick him. Less smelly ways.”_

_“That. Is not. A valid point.”_

_“Is, too.”_

_“Is not.”_

_“Is.”_

End Excerpt

It goes on like that for quite a while. The other students in their close vicinity, meanwhile, seem to have stopped paying attention to the professor almost entirely and are turning their heads back and forth between them, like pigeons watching a ping-pong match.

In a brief pause where they’re both caching their breath trying to come up with a water-tight argument, it occurs to Annabeth that she would probably enjoy this little battle under any other circumstances. It’s actually quite fun. But then she looks at her sparring partner, who is already opening his mouth again, and all her annoyance just comes straight back. Something about him is rubbing her off completely the wrong way. Maybe it’s the way _he_ seems to be enjoying this. At least there’s a smile regularly stealing onto his face. Or maybe it’s his ridiculous hair that won’t ever stop falling into his face. Probably a mixture of both.

By the end of their ‘little’ argument, Annabeth can finally claim they have reached a firm and decisive _draw_. She has to accept it, because at the rate this was going, they weren’t going to get anywhere. It’s kind of a new feeling for Annabeth: there aren’t many people who can fight her to an argumentative stand-still, and she wasn’t prepared for that result when she started.

At least her neighbour is looking about as exhausted as she feels. He’s looking at her, scratching his head. “Did we come to a conclusion now? I’m confused.”

“Same.” she admits. “I didn’t think you actually had the first clue what you were talking about. Consider me proven wrong. For now.” Because as annoyed as she is with him, she’s also a tiny little bit impressed.

There’s the troublemaker-grin again. “I’m often underestimated.”

She snorts, because honestly, this guy. “You pronounced ‘full of yourself’ wrong.”

“Is that a bad thing when I’m right?”

If that wasn’t meant to be challenge, he has learnt nothing from their previous argument, because Annabeth takes it as one. Her competitive side has never felt more alive and eager than now. She doesn’t even feel bad when she takes a deep breath to prepare for the offensive: Okay, so this guy knows his way around mythology. Big deal. He’s started this. Now everything’s fair, and he is going to regret his big mouth in a minute. Annabeth’s brain has compiled a lot of knowledge over the years that she hasn’t really known what to do with since, and here a perfect, unsuspecting vent is presenting itself.

Accordingly, in the following minutes she starts bombarding him with facts and questions and names and dates – from all areas; history, geography, biology, literary theory and anything else that comes to mind – until she herself is starting to confuse them. To her immense satisfaction, it is confusing Green Eyes more, though. By the time where she whips out her ultimate weapon – Greek architecture – he’s staring at her, his expression one big question mark. “What even is – whatever you just said?” he manages. “Jesus. How the hell can you know all that?!”

She smirks: “I’m clever.”

It’s a clear knock-out. He’s just staring at her anymore, mouth open. She’s probably broken him. With a huge grin on her face, Annabeth _finally_ turns back to the front. Her embarrassment from the start is completely forgotten and she feels immensely accomplished – for about two seconds. Then professor Brunner closes the last slide on his computer and sends them all off with a cheerful “That’s it for today; see you next week, everyone!”

* * *

 

It’s 8pm when Annabeth stumbles into her little apartment that day, exhausted. The lights come to life, flicker briefly as if debating whether or not to stay that way, and then decide on shutting down completely.

Yeah, it’s a junk apartment. Annabeth doesn’t even care: With a groan she kicks off her shoes – thank Christ she had decided against high heels – and sinks down into the one chair. Stacking the day with back to back courses had been a mistake. She’s gotten three assignments already, plus a medium sized migraine, and that is not even mentioning that damn first lecture. All the information she has missed there is going to haunt her for a while, she just knows it. In summary, it’s safe to say that Annabeth’s first day could have gone smoother.

She starts laughing into her dark apartment. And no, it’s not because the day has already made her mad. It’s just that, sure, her efforts aren’t off to a good start and her living conditions are junk, but after all is said and done, she has started her bachelor now. Bachelor of Architecture, in spite of all parental objections. And nothing is going to ruin that for her, damn it.

Organized as Annabeth is, she still visits all her courses’ online pages and checks for pending tasks or anything of the like, despite her exhaustion. In most cases she is among the first to do so. When Annabeth logs into Mr Brunner’s lecture (the password is ‘horsepower’ for some odd reason) the finds that only about half a dozen people have registered so far. Briefly, she wonders if the boy with the green eyes is one of them.

The first emotion that bubbles up at that though is annoyance, but she really wants to know. Whatever else she may think of that guy, he certainly has left an impression. And a small, traitorous part of her kind of wants to continue whatever they have started there – whether it turns out to be a rivalry or something else. She quickly skims the list of names:

_-Jack Denver,_

_-Katie Gardner,_

_-Julia Green,_

_-_ _Perseus Jackson,_

-two people with the last name _Stoll_ (probably brothers)

 _-Grover Underwood_.

None of the names sound right for the guy. Annabeth sighs and sits back, rubbing her temples. Her migraine is getting worse. It’s not like she cares, really. Sure, arguing with Green Eyes might have been ~~challenging in a really fun way~~ not too bad, and sure, she has to start making friends and acquaintances here at some point, but that boy isn’t very high on her list for that. Thanks to him, she has missed almost the entire lecture, for fuck’s sake. He probably did that on purpose. He’s probably got some troublemaker name, too, like Mark or Samuel. He’s probably forgotten to register his name entirely.

Whatever.

* * *

:

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, this a Percy Jackson University AU, apparently. Did you like it? Hate it? Be so kind and tell me, cause I don't know where this came from or where it's going.


End file.
